UA Scottish moor swept by winds and rain, a remote village, not to say cut off from the world, a legend surrounding a tragedy dating back several centuries… Gilles Legardinier knew how to select the perfect ingredients to start a good thriller! And indeed, when Christopher Runyard arrives in this magnificent bay with its oppressive atmosphere to touch an inheritance whose origin he does not even know, the reader is very quickly immersed in the intrigue. Especially since Runyard learns that he is not the first to inherit but that his predecessors died too quickly to benefit from the land of which he is the new owner. Helped by Kate, a local ranger, who saves him from a car accident, he will try to disentangle fact from fiction between suspicious and unwelcoming residents, rivalries, neighborhood intrigues and a troubled past.
Curse, revenge or greed
We quickly understand that the city has a mysterious history. A hidden treasure? Many think so… Taking the reader on a journey between past and present, Gilles Legardinier draws him into a legendary mystery. Obviously, it is impossible for the author to abandon humor, so he offers us a picturesque main character who is always ready to crack a joke despite the atmosphere which is becoming increasingly heavy. As the storm rages, the deaths pile up and there are numerous suspects: the whole village in short… We get caught up in the search for the killer as much as in the search for the treasure. Almost no character escapes suspicion, all have more or less glorious secrets. Between humor and suspense, Gilles Legardinier increases the pressure to the point that we are almost a little disappointed by the secret revealed in the end. But the path to get there winds so happily that this book remains a truly good moment of adventure and suspense.
I started by dyingGilles Legardinier, Flammarion, 486 pages, €20
